


Hebrew Blessing for Surviving Illness or Danger

by Rysler



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rysler/pseuds/Rysler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Major spoilers through 7x2 Reunion. LOTS of religious discussion.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Hebrew Blessing for Surviving Illness or Danger

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers through 7x2 Reunion. LOTS of religious discussion.

Walking into Abby's office was a moment Ziva dreaded.

Deeply dreaded.

She had always feared it, had always measured her footfalls, but in this moment the apprehension had become near-panic. Ziva was fully aware she had damaged her friendship with Abby--precarious in its best days--and she didn't know how to repair it.

Abby had sent her an email about the damage, and had suggested it was Ziva's task to come up with the solution. The very action of repentance.

She didn't know how to do any of this. She certainly wasn't going to beg.

She had replied requesting instruction.

Abby had called her a sheep. Had babbled for a paragraph about lost sheep, and black sheep, but Ziva knew what sheep meant.

And she knew who she was. In Abby's eyes and in her own. She followed orders. Orders from her father. Kill this, kill that.

Orders from Gibbs. Save this, save that.

And she'd spent three months sitting in a chair. When she wasn't being beaten, or knocked unconscious, or--

Just sitting. Hoping to die and save everyone the trouble. Abby, honestly, should throw her a bone.

Throw her a bomb?

Ziva hadn't died because Abby had saved her, and they'd all gone to the trouble. She did, she suppose, owe Abby something for that. but it was hard to think straight when she felt alive again, felt renewed, when she wanted things so badly it made her tongue-tied.

When her heart was filled with dread.

"Abby," she called, over the sound of Offspring--odd choice--blasting over the speakers.

Abby saw her and clicked off the music.

"Abby," Ziva said.

Abby walked closer.

Ziva reached out her hands. "Pray with me."

Abby stared at her and clutched her hands. "Okay."

Ziva bowed her head. Images filed her mind.

Eli. Salim. Eli. Salim. Ari. Salim. Ari.

Ari.

"This is all wrong," Abby said, letting go of Ziva's hands.

"What?"

"Come with me."

"Where?"

"Come on. Call Gibbs and tell him we're going to lunch."

Ziva shrugged.

One did not argue with Abby.

* * *

Abby drove to her home, sat Ziva on the couch amidst all the red and black velvet, and propped a framed print of Mary against her TV. She sat down next to Ziva.

"There," Abby said.

"There what?"

"Now we can pray. I mean, I know God says not to make false idols, but there's a picture in St. Stephen, too. I mean, that's what we do, right?"

"We pray to our Mother," Ziva said.

She had been to St. Stephen once or twice, with Abby. The church was the poorer, smaller brother of the politician-backed institutions in the District. More voodoo in its bingo nights. More bowling in its nuns. Less Kennedys.

Ziva hadn't understood any of it.

"You don't talk about your mother much." Abby pursed her lips and took Ziva's hand. "Let's go. Time to pray."

"Abby."

"What?"

"Explain yourself."

Abby turned, facing Ziva on the couch. She traced Ziva's fingers, holding on with both hands. "Okay, listen."

"I'm listening."

"I don't have to pray with you. I mean, you guessed. But you got things flipped. From your perspective, it looks different. But you have to pray with me."

Ziva knitted her brow. "All right. Why?"

"Because you're the prodigal, dude. You're the one who's returning. You're the one who got all lost."

Abby's voice was rising in pitch. Getting louder.

"You're the one who fucked everything up for the whole family. You fucked over Gibbs and Tony and McGee and me. You fucked over me, Ziva. And then you went to Israel and apparently fucked everything up there, too."

Abby took a deep breath.

Ziva raised her eyebrows.

"Fucker," Abby said.

Ziva smiled.

"So I did the whole fatted calf thing in the lab. But not with a fatted calf, because, anachronistic, right? Jesus removed the need for sacrifice, blah blah blah."

"Did you just say blah blah blah?"

"Pay attention."

"To blah?"

Abby covered Ziva's mouth, and said, "Everyone gets a homecoming."

Ziva thought of the confetti. The music. Being in Abby's arms. That moment had been her first true taste of happiness in months.

Abby uncovered Ziva's mouth and took her hand.

Ziva inhaled.

Abby said, "So, welcome home, Ziva. For real. Come into my house. You don't have to pray out there in the cold."

"Well, technically, your lab is your home, too."

"No. It's totally not the same. You go and play video games at Timmy's place when you're sad. We all do. But you, especially. I know he lets you sleep there. I know he lets you shoot up his friends and bring down all his scores. Then he yells at me if I even touch his precious mouse."

Ziva swallowed.

"And Gibbs' basement. The stupid boat. We've all been there."

"Okay."

Abby pulled Ziva's hand to her cheek. "Those are pieces of your home, Ziva. And here in this piece, you're going to pray with me. Because that's what you came up with."

"Okay."

Abby nodded.

Ziva closed her eyes.

Abby hummed.

Images filled her mind again. The ones that had sustained her for those months in North Africa. For those years before as she mourned her brother.

Jenny.

Gibbs. Tony. Gibbs. McGee. Tony. His face, as Salim pulled off her hood. His face, a thousand times. Gibbs, holding her in the hospital. Abby, holding her when she was broken.

"Oh," she breathed.

Abby let go of her hand to take Ziva into her arms. Ziva cried against her shoulder, the images of her friends filling her mind, pushing out all others, warming her scalp, and then her back, and then her fingertips, as she clutched Abby, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears.

Abby sang.

Ziva took deep gulps of air.

Abby let her go and took Ziva's face in her hands.

"You're home," Abby said. She nodded Ziva's face up and down.

"You're never leaving again." She shook Ziva's face from side to side.

Ziva took Abby's hand and held it still to kiss her palm.

"Besides. I can't believe you skipped out on Yom Kippur on me," Abby said. "You know I crave the guilt. Midnight mass."

Ziva laughed and said, "I was never very good at that stuff."

"Well, we'll have Thanksgiving soon. We'll make do. Sacrifice a free-range tofu turkey, or something."

Ziva nodded, moving Abby's hand with her lips.

"Don't stay in that Navy housing anymore," Abby said. "Stay with me. Please?"

Abby's commands became requests only rarely. Only when emotion clouded her judgement.

Then the requests became impossible for any human to deny.

"Okay," Ziva said.

Abby hugged her neck. That near-strangulation that felt like swaddling. Like a shield and armor.

Abby was shaking. Ziva gingerly reached up to hold her.

"Abby?"

Abby pressed her wet cheek against Ziva's neck. "We should make merry and be glad. My sister was dead and is alive again. Was lost and is found. I put your name into the prayer requests. Every Sunday, they would call your name. I didn't even know if you were just mad at us. Just hanging out in a club and not thinking about us at all. It was stupid."

"No it wasn't," Ziva murmured. She rocked Abby in her arms, trying to comfort Abby by mimicking how Abby comforted her. She tried like there was nothing else in her life to live for. Nothing else but perfecting this.

* * *

As Ziva stretched out on her back, listening to Abby snore beside her, she accounted for her sins.

Murder.

Lying.

Dishonoring her father.

Disbelieving in G-d.

And yet, Abby snored beside her, and Ziva had her job and her purpose and Gibbs. She was free enough that her heart felt light. She could float here, above the bed.

Wouldn't that make Abby's day.

She settled just for smiling and praying.

"I am unworthy," she whispered. "But thank you."

Abby snorted in her sleep and flung her arm across Ziva's abdomen.

Only then did Ziva feel safe enough to close her eyes against the universe.

END


End file.
